Tonclonukna Creek Fire
The Tonclonukna Creek Fire burned 164,318 acres in Alaska, in 2009. It was discovered on May 23, 2009, and contained on September 17, 2009. The cause was recorded as natural.
- Size
- 164,318 acres
- Discovered
- May 23, 2009
- Contained
- September 17, 2009
- Cause
- Natural
Map
The burned area boundary MTBS mapped from Landsat imagery, 158,922 acres. Point of origin as reported, 63.200, -153.270.
The record
- Reported final size
- 164,318 acres
- Burned area mapped by MTBS
- 158,922 acres
- Area inside the final perimeter
- 164,319 acres
- Discovered
- May 23, 2009, 6:07 p.m. local time
- Contained
- September 17, 2009, 4:30 p.m. local time
- Cause
- Natural
- State
- Alaska
- Land ownership at origin
- State
- Reporting unit
- Alaska Fire Service
- Agency
- DVF
- Unit
- AKSWS
- Incident type
- Wildfire
- Unique fire identifier
- 2009-AKSWS-000152
- MTBS fire identifier
- AK6335015356320090523
- MTBS assessment
- Extended
- Fire occurrence record
- W-595926
- Perimeter map method
- Not Recorded
- Note on the perimeter
- Firehawk
The three sizes are three measurements: the size the agency reported when the fire was out, the burned area MTBS drew from satellite imagery before and after, and the GIS area inside the final perimeter, unburned islands included. They rarely agree exactly.
From the incident teams’ reports
The status summaries (ICS-209 forms) the incident teams filed: 17, from June 8, 2009 to September 21, 2009. These are the teams’ own estimates, written while the incident was running, and personnel is totaled from the resources each report lists. A fact the reports leave blank is not shown, and a zero on the form is treated as blank.
- Most structures threatened at once
- 16
- Most personnel assigned
- 73 on June 12, 2009
- Most aircraft assigned
- 2
- Cost reported by the teams
- $3 million, in 2009 dollars
- Cause on the reports
- Lightning or other natural
- Primary fuel model reported
- Hardwood Litter
- Suppression strategy reported
- Confine
Acres reported by day
The largest rise between two days’ reports was 8,527 acres, on June 9, 2009.
Reported acres by day, as a table
| Day | Acres | Change from the day before |
|---|---|---|
| Jun 8, 2009 | 16,500 | |
| Jun 9, 2009 | 25,027 | +8,527 |
| Jun 10, 2009 | 30,887 | +5,860 |
| Jun 11, 2009 | 32,918 | +2,031 |
| Jun 12, 2009 | 38,040 | +5,122 |
| Jun 13, 2009 | 38,040 | 0 |
| Jun 14, 2009 | 38,040 | 0 |
| Jun 15, 2009 | 38,040 | 0 |
| Jun 16, 2009 | 44,725 | +6,685 |
| Jul 8, 2009 | 64,285 | |
| Jul 11, 2009 | 72,574 | |
| Jul 12, 2009 | 72,574 | 0 |
| Jul 13, 2009 | 75,000 | +2,426 |
| Jul 20, 2009 | 108,654 | |
| Jul 23, 2009 | 127,441 | |
| Jul 25, 2009 | 141,208 | |
| Sep 21, 2009 | 164,318 |
Other large fires in Alaska in 200912
| Fire | Acres | Start | Cause |
|---|---|---|---|
| Railbelt Complex (Minto Flats South) Fire | 517,078 | Jun 21, 2009 | Natural |
| Little Black One Fire | 349,450 | Jun 20, 2009 | Natural |
| Big Creek Fire | 169,639 | Jul 18, 2009 | Natural |
| Titna River Fire | 164,542 | Jul 11, 2009 | Natural |
| Zitziana Fire | 141,126 | Jun 17, 2009 | Natural |
| Nowitna Fire | 126,582 | Jun 13, 2009 | Natural |
| Wood River 1 Fire | 125,382 | Jul 12, 2009 | Natural |
| Railbelt Complex (Rex Creek) Fire | 101,150 | Aug 2, 2009 | Natural |
| Stevens Creek 1 Fire | 85,909 | Jun 18, 2009 | Natural |
| Sheenjek Fire | 62,658 | Jul 2, 2009 | Natural |
| Rock Slough Fire | 62,313 | Jun 30, 2009 | Natural |
| Chakina Fire | 56,413 | Jul 2, 2009 | Natural |
Sources
Perimeters from the National Interagency Fire Center’s Interagency Fire Perimeter History, compiled from the Forest Service, BLM, BIA, Fish and Wildlife Service, National Park Service, the Alaska Interagency Fire Center and CAL FIRE. Burned areas and ignition dates from Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity (MTBS), a program of the US Geological Survey and the USDA Forest Service. Fire reports from Short, Karen C. 2022, Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014], 6th Edition, Forest Service Research Data Archive, doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6. Records before 2014 were joined by this site: a fire report to the burned area its MTBS identifier names, a perimeter to the burned area it lies in when the names or the sizes agree. Incident figures from ICS-209-PLUS: St. Denis, Lise A., Karen C. Short, Kathryn McConnell, Maxwell C. Cook, Nathan P. Mietkiewicz, Mollie Buckland and Jennifer K. Balch, 2023, All-hazards dataset mined from the US National Incident Management System 1999-2020, Scientific Data 10, 112, doi.org/10.1038/s41597-023-01955-0; data on figshare, doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.19858927.v3, licensed CC BY 4.0. This site matched each incident to the fire by the dataset’s own links where it has them, and otherwise by name, start date, state and size, and left out figures too large to be possible for a fire of its size.